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<h2>The Clip Group</h2>


The Computational Logic, Implementation, and Parallelism (CLIP) Group
at the Computer Science School of the Technical University of Madrid
(UPM) started in 1990, and since then has been strongly committed to
developing solutions which at the same time constitute quality
research with a strong theoretical foundation and result in clearly
applicable technology.

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The group has a long and active research history in (Constraint) Logic
Programming, mainly in the fields of program analysis, implementation
of sequential and parallel systems, visualization, and program
development environments (including static / dynamic debugging and
user interfaces). A number of popular products in the area include the
results of these research efforts. The Clip group is actively involved
in the practical application of (constraint) logic based programming
languages and systems in emerging application areas.

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The Clip Group has developed, among others, the constraint logic
programming system and development enviroment <em>Ciao</em>. Ciao is a
LGPL licensed, free software system, which is being used in industrial
applications and in academia, and it is their main platform for
developing logic-based applications and performing language design and
implementation research.  Ciao Prolog offers unique possibilities of
extension which have allowed writing many libraries which add
significant functionality: constraint solvers, concurrency,
distributed and agent programming primitives, persistence,
higher-order, objects, foreign language interfaces, etc. In this
context, the Clip Group has also developed the PiLLoW library,
arguably the most widely used library for interfacing (constraint)
logic programming systems to the WWW.  The Clip Group has also
developed and distributes freely an automatic documentation generator
for logic-based programming systems (lpdoc).

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UPM's Clip Group has also defined and implemented several analysis
frameworks for (constraint) logic languages, with applications ranging
from automatic detection of parallelism to performance improvement
through better compilation. The information obtained from such an
analysis has also been used to discover inconsistencies with respect
to program assertions to drive static / dynamic debugging tools. All
these techniques are integrated in a generic preprocessor, instances
of which are CiaoPP (for Ciao) and CHIPRE (for CHIP).  Several 2D and
3D techniques for visualization of the run-time behavior of constraint
programs have been also tested and implemented within the Ciao
project.

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The research group at UPM has participated in several European and
Spanish projects in the last 12 years. Among them we may cite, as more
directly related to the present proposal, the ESPRIT projects DiSCiPl,
RadioWeb, Vocal, ACCLAIM, PRINCE, and ParForCe, and the ERCIM working
group on constraints, HCM Abile program, and the COMPULOG II/III and
Colognet Networks of Excellence. The group has also been granted
projects by the Spanish government such as IPL-D, ELLA, and EDIPIA,
which are related to the development and implementation of advanced
logic systems and analysis tools for them.  UPM has also obtained a
U.S.A.-Spain Fulbright and NATO scientific collaboration grants.
Besides a well-established undergraduate and PhD curriculum and strong
relationships with other universities worldwide in the form of regular
student exchanges, UPM has collaborated with a large number of
companies in different projects. The companies with which UPM has
currently contacts with, or has collaborated with, include SAGE (the
Spanish branch of the German Software AG), Motorola Inc., Iberdrola
(the main Spanish electrical company), PrologIA (France), OEM Partners
(Belgium), Ibermatica (Spain), and Dalet (Israel). Additionally, UPM's
Ciao Prolog System, as well as some related tools, are being used by
industries in the development of several products including WWW
interfaces, B2B systems, and agent systems.

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The CLIP group acts as coordinator in the project, and also takes the
role of technology provider, due to its long standing experience on
logic programming systems and environments.


<h2>Conecta Srl</h2>

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Conecta was born in May of 1995, with the goal of offering tools for
total network integration and training, and IT consulting to business
customers. From the start, Conecta focused on offering high quality
services, with a strong belief on Open Source code as a way to suit
the customers needs. Conecta extended his reach to offer open source
consulting, code porting, network planning, e-commerce, and business
integration services. This allowed the firm to create a complete
infrastructure for the creation of e-commerce and e-hub systems-one of
the firsts in Italy. With a staff of 12 people, several external
consultants, and a projected revenue of one million Euros for the year
2001, Conecta is now one of the most important open source consulting
firms in Italy and one of the few independent houses for the creation
of high-level e-commerce and transactional systems.  Conecta has
extensive experience in performing matching of open source, and its
past experience can be used in order to perform a verification of the
adequateness of the outcome of the project with respect to its
goals. It has also an extensive experience in creating complex
software systems out of open source components, creating the necessary
glue code, and improving and extending the individual pieces to meet
the customer needs. This allows the company to address immediately the
technical difficulties of the project and also to apply it immediately
to real world examples.

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